$17 million:
Amount budgeted by the county and MMPI for property acquisition.

$32 million:
Amount budgeted by MMPI to renovate Public Auditorium.

$49 million:
Total allocated for property acquisition and renovation.

$20 million:
Cleveland's price for the convention center.

$24 million:
Request from private property owners for land west of Mall B.

$90 million:
Updated cost of renovating Public Auditorium.

$134 million:
Total new costs for property acquisition and renovation.

$85 million:
Difference between original estimate and refined costs after feasibility studies.

The price of getting the nation's first
medical mart
suddenly got a lot steeper for Cleveland.

In a presentation last week, MMPI Inc. of Chicago showed Cleveland City Council how its new desire to put the medical mart atop Mall C at the north end of the city's convention center would simplify the project and cut costs dramatically.

The problem is that what's best for MMPI now may not be best for Cleveland. It's also hard to swallow the company's explanations for its new thrust, which seem less than candid.

MMPI signed a deal last April with Cuyahoga County to carry out the $425 million project, which involves building a year-round showroom for medical devices next to the renovated downtown convention center.

But the company's new idea requires fresh approval from the city, because city land is involved. So the overriding question now is whether City Council and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson will cave in order to keep the project moving or push for something that reflects a larger civic vision for downtown.

The MMPI proposal leaves a lot to question. It would leave Cleveland with a Public Auditorium severed from the adjacent, city-owned convention center, which lies below Malls B and C downtown.

It would leave intact the present ugly melange of buildings on the west side of Mall B. And it would place the medical mart far from downtown hotels and parking in a spot where it would block a century-old view of Lake Erie.

MMPI's early architectural renderings are raw at this point. But the company's vision has jelled enough to show that Mall C -- now a lovely public park -- probably would become little more than a glorified doormat for the medical mart.

The balance between private profit and public benefit looked better last April. Under MMPI's original deal with the county, the company was to build the medical mart on privately owned property west of Mall B, north of St. Clair Avenue.

The project at that point had the potential to reinvigorate the Mall, originally conceived as the centerpiece of the 1903 Group Plan for downtown government and civic buildings.

If the surface of Mall C had to be raised to accommodate higher ceilings for convention spaces below, that didn't look like a deal-breaker. It was also something that could have been adjusted later in the design process.

Starting in the spring, MMPI worked quietly for months with engineering and architectural consultants to refine its plans and check cost estimates. Then, three weeks ago, it unleashed the twin bombshells about Mall C and Public Auditorium.

MMPI says placing the medical mart at the north end of the convention center would place showrooms and meeting spaces closer to exhibit areas than the Mall B idea. It would also give the medical mart interiors sweeping lake views.

But simple math also explains the company's logic.

Under the original $425 million deal, MMPI and the county budgeted $17 million to acquire the private property west of Mall B needed for the medical mart, including the 113 St. Clair office building, the Sportsman Restaurant and the Justice Center Garage.

In May, City Council voted to require the county to pay $20 million to acquire the convention center and Public Auditorium, absorbing all the money allotted for property acquisition and then some. (In the latest version, the $20 million is for the convention center alone; Public Auditorium stays with the city.)

After that, the company learned that the property owners west of Mall B wanted $24 million, not $17 million as expected.

In September and October, MMPI's consultants told it that renovating Public Auditorium would cost roughly $90 million, $58 million more than the company budgeted.

Add it all up, and MMPI and the county faced $85 million in unexpected costs for property acquisition and renovations -- an amount that could render it impossible to deliver the project for $425 million.

It's questionable, however, whether MMPI has negotiated vigorously with the private property owners west of Mall B. If a few million dollars is the main factor driving the discussion over the location of the medical mart, that's crazy. Surely some accommodation could be reached that would satisfy everyone.

Perhaps, though, MMPI really wants to protest the city's $20 million price for the convention center. If that's the case, the company should be direct about it.

The sudden revelations about the high cost of renovating Public Auditorium don't wash.

MMPI was completely accurate in its assessment that the concrete "bathtub" foundation of the convention center is strong enough to reuse.

MMPI Vice President Mark Falanga said the company couldn't get complete access to utility areas inside Public Auditorium until this summer. But that still doesn't explain how could a smart company be so right on the convention center yet so wrong on Public Auditorium. Anyone who has bought a house knows to look at a fuse box before signing a contract.

From the city's point of view, the new deal proposed by MMPI would leave it with serious problems.

For example, it's unlikely Public Auditorium can be neatly severed from the convention center, given that utilities for the two structures are deeply intertwined beneath the lobby they share, which was built in 1964.

If MMPI demolishes the lobby, who will pay for new water, sewer and electrical hookups for Public Auditorium, not to mention a new west facade to replace the gigantic hole left behind?

The costs of putting the medical mart north of Mall C range from the intangibles of blocking a lake view to the symbolism of making a corporate glass box the focal point of the Mall, designed originally to embody the progressive politics of early 20th-century Cleveland.

To lessen the apparent distance between the medical mart and the downtown core, MMPI proposes building entry pavilions for the medical mart along St. Clair Avenue and connecting them to the main facility with long, underground passageways.

This would require doctors, vendors and conventioneers to scuttle back and forth in buried gerbil tubes, not a pretty picture.

The architecture and landscaping in the company's proposal certainly could evolve beyond the current conjectural images. But it's fair to ask now whether the idea itself is the right direction.

History may offer guidance.

It's true that Daniel Burnham, the Chicago architect who planned the Mall a century ago, contemplated placing a train station at the north end of the space, roughly in the same spot where MMPI wants to put the medical mart.

But one major goal of Burnham's train station was to block views of smoky trains approaching on lakefront rail lines, not to improve connections to the water. Emulating that example today might be unwise.

After voters decided in 1919 to build the city's main train station behind the Terminal Tower at Public Square, a new generation of planners strove to extend the Mall to the lake. Their ideas are just as valid as Burnham's.

In 1936, the Mall was temporarily extended over the railroad lines to the lakefront for the Great Lakes Exposition. And in 1987, architect Frank Gehry proposed extending the Mall north to North Coast Harbor as the front door to the unbuilt lakefront skyscraper he designed for Progressive Corp.

Such precedents ought to be studied closely before the city gives up forever on the idea of extending the Mall to the lake.

If MMPI were only investing its own money, it would be understandable that it would simply push for the best deal for itself without regard to civic implications.

But the medical mart project is a public-private partnership. Under the terms of the original deal, the public will own whatever the company builds after 20 years.

This means the public should have a greater say now in the planning and design of the project. Since April, however, MMPI has held the city at arm's length. Then came the shocker about Mall C.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County should by all means land the medical mart. But they should also negotiate the right deal for MMPI and for downtown. From that perspective, the site on St. Clair Avenue west of Mall B still looks best.

On the other hand, if MMPI is adamant about putting the medical mart north of Mall C, Clevelanders would have to realize that in addition to losing a view, the city would lose a piece of its history, and of its soul. That would be a high price indeed.